


last call at shin-ōsaka station, 21:24

by kunimi, miyaosamu (kunimi)



Series: like waves (we break and we build) [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, M/M, Post-Break Up, bg atsukomo, kind of? what do you call it when you break off something, this is very Right Person Wrong Time, where you were in love but not dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29880750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunimi/pseuds/kunimi, https://archiveofourown.org/users/kunimi/pseuds/miyaosamu
Summary: Osamu doesn’t reply. Doesn’t say that he keeps it for a reason. Doesn’t say that Kiyoomi brushing it back is part of his routine now, built into the rhythm of his everyday life.It doesn’t matter. Motoya can see it written across his face, plain as day.“So,” Motoya says lightly. “You’re in love with him too.”To his credit, Osamu doesn’t flinch.komori motoya watches miya osamu outside shin-ōsaka station on a saturday night, and sees a man in love.this is not news to osamu.
Relationships: Komori Motoya & Miya Osamu, Komori Motoya & Sakusa Kiyoomi, Miya Osamu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Series: like waves (we break and we build) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196774
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23
Collections: 🐶🍙 omigiri fanfic collection





	last call at shin-ōsaka station, 21:24

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wendysheep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendysheep/gifts).



> so i've been in a low mood this week & was like, i'll cheer myself up with omigiri cuddling! opened a doc on my phone, named it omigiri college au, and then... hopped into the shower and wrote the first 500 words of this, which. is distinctly not cuddling OR college. yeah, idk what happened either. i blame the steam 
> 
> anyway, this goes alongside another [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169691) i wrote a bit ago, originally a twt thread – this is sort of a prequel to it, though i think there's four stories to tell all up. maybe five. anyway, they'll be going up out of order, just because i know there's still one that came before this, and then one that goes after the other one, but for what it's worth, it's all part of a wider sorta-exes-to-lovers story (what to do when it's the right person, wrong time – wrong place – or maybe could-have-been-rights, but you followed a different path instead) so it's all omigiri through & through! just the different stages of their relationship along this timeline, and through different eyes each time
> 
> all right, they're twenty-four in this one, both living in higashiōsaka – it's set a few years before the other one. also i suck at choosing random numbers so that's actually the time the last train to tokyo left shin-ōsaka station today
> 
> endless thanks to wendy for reading the first 500-ish words of this after i stared at it going "wtf is this, is this usable" and validating it even as i was grumbling unhelpfully about wanting them to be cuddling kfdkhadh

“You know he’s in love with you, right?” Motoya asks.

A beat. Two. Then a sigh; a drag of a cigarette, the night sky clouded by smoke.

“Yeah,” Osamu says quietly. “I know.”

Motoya studies him carefully. They’re adults, and nobody owes anyone their affection, so Motoya wouldn’t try to demand Osamu love his cousin back or anything even if that _was_ the missing piece, but. He doesn’t think that’s it. 

He looks at Osamu, at the sharp lines of him – the broad strokes of his shoulders, the precision of his waist. The slope of his eyes, tired, waiting. Thinks he can see what appeals about him to Kiyoomi – the gentle lines around his mouth, like he smiles easily, but not endlessly; the way his hair falls across his face, not enough to obscure his eyes, but enough to give Kiyoomi a reason to touch it, to brush it back. Motoya knows his cousin, knows the intricate rituals he constructs for himself. He’s never seen Kiyoomi like this before – he looks at Osamu like it’s something hopeless, something helpless; not like he loves him for the way he wants to beat him, like Ushijima, or for the way he doesn’t understand him, like Iizuna; not even the way he recognises himself in both of them, respects them so wholly. No, Kiyoomi looks at Osamu like he’s someone who was never supposed to happen to him, but had the audacity to happen anyway.

Kiyoomi looks at Osamu like he’s an impossible thing, and looking at the boy who makes his cousin fight back a smile without even trying, Motoya thinks he could believe it.

“Your hair’s a little long,” Motoya says, which is inane, but –

Osamu’s hand stills, settling on the balustrade before him. Like he’s trying not to brush his hair back himself.

“Must make it hard to work,” Motoya says mildly. 

“It’s not so bad,” Osamu says. “Can always sweep it back with the cap, y’know?”

“Not annoying when you’re not at the shop?” Motoya asks.

Osamu doesn’t reply. Doesn’t say that he keeps it for a reason. Doesn’t say that Kiyoomi brushing it back is part of his routine now, built into the rhythm of his everyday life.

It doesn’t matter. Motoya can see it written across his face, plain as day.

“So,” Motoya says lightly. “You’re in love with him too.”

To his credit, Osamu doesn’t flinch. Atsumu had, when Motoya had asked him if he was in love with him – had dragged his hand across his face, peeking at Motoya through his fingers, before grumpily spitting it out: _Yeah, maybe. … Ya got a problem with that?_

Osamu is not his brother, who is honest because he can’t help it, because he’s never learned to bite anything back. (Motoya loves him for it. Presses his lips to a scowling Atsumu’s temple, laughing gently against his skin, saying: _Not a single one._ )

Osamu is not Atsumu, and he is honest on purpose.

“Yeah.”

One syllable. An exhale more than a word. Still, Motoya can hear a litany in there.

It’s like talking to Kiyoomi, in a way. His cousin is direct – honest, straightforward, and doesn’t hold back. He’s at his most revealing, though, in the smallest moments. In the way his nose scrunches up, or his eyes crinkle above his mask. In the slight sighs he makes, or the way his breathing changes.

Motoya doesn’t know Osamu nearly as well as he knows Atsumu, will never know Osamu the way Kiyoomi does, but he thinks they can reach an understanding, here in this moment, waiting outside Shin-Ōsaka Station.

He surveys Osamu – looks past the tired eyes, sees something tighter there than just a natural tilt to his expression, than any level of physical exhaustion. This is something else – bone-weary, maybe. Lungs after exhalation – more hollow than they’re used to being. Emptiness in the aftermath of being filled.

“You’re not going to tell him,” he surmises.

Osamu doesn’t answer; just takes another drag of his cigarette, the smoke once again clouding the night sky. Motoya thinks Kiyoomi would have wrinkled his nose; thinks he could see Suna stealing the cigarette, Atsumu thieving it from either his or Osamu’s hands and stamping it out beneath his foot.

Motoya is not Suna, and does not steal from his friends for fun, especially not cigarettes he has no interest in; he’s not Atsumu, who cares about Osamu in grumbling tones and protective movements, but never says it out loud; and he’s not Kiyoomi, and doesn’t have a vested interest in the state of Osamu’s breath, health, lungs – he’s not the one who would have swallowed whatever kisses Osamu gave, after all.

He looks at Osamu again with that thought flashing through his mind, and thinks that maybe cigarette smoke tastes like a poor consolation prize.

“Why won’t you tell him?” Motoya asks.

Osamu snorts. “Maybe I’m a coward,” he says.

Motoya considers this, then shakes his head. “I’m pretty sure you’re many things, but I don’t think you’re that,” he says.

Osamu scowls at him, but there’s no heat behind it. He just looks tired.

“Is he picking you up?” he asks abruptly. He taps his cigarette against the railing, dislodging some of the ash.

Motoya thinks about whether he should tell him or not. He’s naturally an honest person, open and welcoming, but Sakusa Kiyoomi is one of the few things in this world Motoya knows as well as the back of his own hand (the others: the feeling of a ball smacking against the skin of his forearms, absorbing the energy and sending it to his setter; the sound of his mother’s laugh, scratchy and hoarse; Atsumu’s lips, the warm pressure of them, always a little tender on the lower lip because of the way he tugs it between his teeth when he’s dreaming up new moves to try), and loyalty to him comes as easy as breathing.

“It’s fine,” Osamu says, a slow blink alongside his words. “You don’t have to tell me, I just figured – ‘Tsumu didn’t mention it, and normally he’d be all excited if he was picking you up, so I – ” He cuts himself off, glancing at the large clock on the wall behind them. “Then again, s’not like either of ‘em to be late,” he murmurs.

“I told Kiyoomi I’d text him,” Motoya says, and does not miss the way Osamu’s eyes go carefully blank at the sound of his name. “For pick up.”

“And have you?” 

Motoya glances at his phone, where there’s an unsent text written out in the typing box. “Not yet.”

“You should,” Osamu says. “He’ll be waiting for it, and the later it gets, the more his routine will be disrupted.”

It’s a factual statement. Motoya knows quite well how consistently his cousin sticks to a routine – how grumpy he gets when someone forces him to break it – how deep it runs, like a path made from constant treading, or the wearing away of the wood varnish in the corner of their middle school gym from Kiyoomi’s constant, relentless practicing of the wall drill.

It’s a factual statement, but in Osamu’s mouth, it sounds like an invocation. Like a statement of faith. Motoya half expects Osamu to clap twice, do his bows. It’s not like Motoya thinks Osamu treats Kiyoomi as if he’s one of the kami – fuck knows he’s too grounded for that, and Kiyoomi has always been supremely disinterested in people who treat him as if he’s anything other than human, always rolling his eyes at the newspapers that call them members of the _monster generation_ – but rather that Osamu says it with a tone that’s more faith than simple fact. Like it doesn’t really matter that Kiyoomi is consistent, just that Osamu knows he can always trust in that.

Motoya isn’t sure he actually understands what the difference is, but he senses it nonetheless.

“I don’t get it,” Motoya says, but he taps _send_ on his phone nonetheless. “You’re clearly a reasonable person, mostly, so this just seems – ” He waves his hand at the station, the night sky, the world around them, as if that’s enough to indicate that Osamu is the centre of his own magnetic storm, changing the polarity of the world just enough that everything is slightly off-kilter.

In his hand, his phone buzzes. _Be there in ten._

“What makes you think I’m reasonable?” Osamu asks, sounding a little curious despite himself. He taps the cigarette against the railing again, then pulls it to his lips. Inhales. One, two, three. Exhales. Smoke, but maybe something else too. There’s resignation in the set of his shoulders now, where before they were just a tightly locked secret.

“Kiyoomi wouldn’t date someone who wasn’t,” Motoya says confidently. “Someone in the relationship has to be reasonable, and no matter what he says, over half the time it’s not going to be him.” His eyebrows knit together. “Then again, I wouldn’t have thought he’d date someone who smoked either.”

“He didn’t,” Osamu says brusquely.

Motoya raises an eyebrow. “New habit?” he asks, keeping the incredulity out of his voice. Osamu is too practiced with it to be unfamiliar.

“No,” Osamu says. “I mean, I haven’t for a while, but – it’s not that.” He takes another drag, blowing a ring of smoke into the air. “It’s just – we weren’t dating.”

Motoya blinks, furrows his brow, scrunches his nose.

“Run that by me again?”

Osamu makes an exasperated noise. “We weren’t dating,” he says shortly. “Never have been. Whatever we’ve been doing, it’s – ” He pauses, something clouding his expression, before forcibly clearing it. “It’s not that, all right? We’re – ”

“You’re not nothing,” Motoya says sharply, and Osamu freezes for a moment. Then he nods.

“I know that,” he says. “But still, we’re not really anything either.”

Motoya thinks about the way Kiyoomi’s voice had caught when he’d asked Motoya if he wanted to visit, as if some of his words had jagged edges that Motoya couldn’t see but Kiyoomi couldn’t step around. He thinks he’s starting to understand the mess here, though he doesn’t know how to unravel it. Not that it’s his place to, but he doesn’t even know if he could if he tried.

“So that’s it, then?” Motoya asks casually. “You’re off to Tokyo, because there’s nothing to keep you here.”

“I’m off to Tokyo – well, this is just a scoping visit,” Osamu says slowly. “But I’m off to Tokyo because people’ve been askin’ about a branch there for a while now. It’s – ” He stares down at his hands. At some point, the cigarette fell out of them. Motoya supposes they’re lucky it’s a cold night, and that it was down to its last embers anyway.

“It’s what the business needs,” Osamu says finally, and Motoya does not argue. He suspects Kiyoomi wouldn’t either. For someone who’s always sparkled at his crushes and been impossible in arguments because of his unexpected opinions on everything from dogs to matcha, Kiyoomi’s never lacked for pragmatism.

He doesn’t even think Kiyoomi begrudges Osamu for any of this. He probably agrees with him, even if his tone had been unfamiliarly affected enough that Motoya had decided to visit in mere moments.

“Right,” Motoya says.

He doesn’t think it’s that Osamu _wants_ to leave, exactly; more that an opportunity has called him to, and there isn’t a reason that makes sense to stay.

There’s the sound of an engine around the corner, and headlights spill across the road. Osamu swallows.

“I should go,” he says. “Last call will be soon.”

Motoya looks at the clock. _21:17_. 

He knows for a fact that the train does not leave until 21:24, because he’s set to take the same line in a few days time, heading to Tokyo to visit his grandmother and Kiyoomi’s older sister – bringing Kiyoomi with him too, if he can swing it – before heading back home to EJP.

But Kiyoomi’s pulling into the car park, and Osamu is slipping into the station. Motoya lets him.

“Hey, Osamu?” he calls.

Osamu pauses, turning around in the doorway.

“Good luck with the Tokyo restaurant,” he says. He means it too.

Something passes over Osamu’s face – a reluctant gratitude, maybe.

“Thanks,” he says. He’s quiet, but there’s a real smile on his face, small as it is.

Then the door closes, and Miya Osamu slips into Shin-Ōsaka Station, leaving Motoya outside with a lot of swirling thoughts and a cousin whose heart is half-broken, half-beating.

“Are you ready?” Kiyoomi asks, coming up the steps. He’s always intimidating – not to Motoya, never to Motoya, but from an unbiased perspective, physically-speaking – but there’s something a little cooler about him now, like frost-tinged glass. He’s quieter as well, moving no less gracefully, but a little less distinctly.

It’ll pass, Motoya decides. He knows his cousin. The feelings likely won’t pass, at least not easily, but this manifestation of them – Kiyoomi’s dark eyes, too sharp and too tender all at once – will.

“Yeah,” Motoya says, finally pulling his eyes from the door. He hands Kiyoomi his shoulder-bag, knowing better than to give him the suitcase.

Kiyoomi accepts it without complaint, but he pauses on the way down the stairs, nose wrinkling.

“What is it?” Motoya asks.

“You don’t smoke,” Kiyoomi says. It’s not phrased like a question, but Motoya thinks there’s probably one in there, so he shakes his head anyway.

“Nah, never, you know me,” he says.

Kiyoomi’s face is impressively impassive, considering how expressive he’s always been.

“It’s – ” he begins, then cuts himself off. He frowns at the ground, as if the stone of the steps is directly responsible for reminding him of the man he allowed to become part of his landscape, suddenly uprooted.

But this is Kiyoomi, and he is never vague where he could be honest, and he is never afraid of himself, even the parts he does not quite understand.

“Osamu smoked those cigarettes, sometimes,” he says. Motoya figures that Kiyoomi _would_ be someone who can tell the difference between the smells of different cigarette brands, despite hating them all equally.

“Mmm,” Motoya says, then nudges his cousin with his shoulder. “You okay?”

Kiyoomi blinks. “Yes,” he says, and Motoya doesn’t even think he’s lying. He’s not telling the truth, exactly, because anyone with eyes could see that there’s something rattling in his chest, far below where any fingers can try to seek it out, but it’s not an outright lie.

“All right,” Motoya hums.

“Come on,” Kiyoomi says, rolling his eyes. “Let’s go.”

Motoya does not miss the way Kiyoomi doesn’t hold his nose as they walk past the remnants of the cigarette, even though normally he would actively avoid that sort of smell. He does not miss the way Kiyoomi’s expression goes taut when Motoya adjusts the seat forward slightly, because the last passenger was clearly taller than him. He does not miss the aux cable still plugged into the sound system of the car, even though Kiyoomi’s phone doesn’t have a jack for it.

The announcement rings out from the speaker: _Last call: the 21:24 Nozomi to Tokyo is leaving now. Last call for Shin-Ōsaka Station, 21:24._

Kiyoomi starts the engine.

The sound rings in Motoya’s ears as they leave.

**Author's Note:**

> they're in love but, well, they've got some time to go – dreams to chase, or at least goals to achieve – before they get to recognise that again, i think. also i was getting ready to post at like 850 words in and then. idk. all this happened
> 
> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/kurokenns) – for some reason i have two separate exes reconciliation verses for omigiri, but i promise that i'm normally more on the flirting or exasperated affection side of things for them on twt
> 
> twitter post for this fic can be found [here!](https://twitter.com/kurokenns/status/1368230620401307650)
> 
> also idk if i'll get a chance to post another fic before it starts, so, just a promo for [datekou week!!](https://twitter.com/datekouweek/status/1351421218872676353?s=20) for as much as i am always writing about these two, datekou is actually my favourite school and i got v excited to see this week and have remained excited ever since hkfdshjka


End file.
